On Monday night, October 9,
SpaceX
is preparing to launch an additional 22 Starlink internet satellites from the state of Florida, reported Space dot com.
These Starlink spacecraft are set to take off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with liftoff scheduled for 8:42 p.m. EDT (0042 GMT on October 10). There are also four backup launch opportunities available, ranging from 9:32 p.m. EDT until 12:10 a.m. EDT (0132 to 0410 GMT on October 10).
You'll be able to witness the launch live through SpaceX's X (formerly Twitter) account, and coverage is expected to commence approximately five minutes before liftoff.
Assuming all goes as planned, the Falcon 9's first stage will make a vertical landing at sea on SpaceX's drone ship named "A Shortfall of Gravitas" roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff. Remarkably, this marks the 14th launch and landing for this specific Falcon 9 first stage, with two of its prior 13 missions having transported astronauts to the
International Space Station
for NASA.
Following the launch, the 22
Starlink satellites
are scheduled to be deployed into low Earth orbit from the Falcon 9's upper stage approximately 65 minutes after liftoff.
Originally slated for Sunday night (October 8), Monday's launch experienced a 24-hour delay due to high winds. Had it occurred on Sunday night, it would have been the first of two consecutive Starlink launches, with a different Falcon 9 set to send 22 Starlinks into orbit from
California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:23 a.m. EDT (0723 GMT) on Monday.
These two Starlink missions represent SpaceX's 71st and 72nd orbital launches of the year, the majority of which have been dedicated to expanding the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently comprises over 4,830 operational satellites.